Evaluation Works
Survey Research
How do you really know what your customers or employees think about various aspects of your business?
Depending on your type of business, you have your own list of customer or employee questions you’d like to answer.
Some businesses informally survey target audiences through conversations, brief questionnaires, or other means, but if you plan to make decisions that will affect your business, you’ll need information you can count on. After all, the squeaky wheels might get the grease, but it’s not a good idea to depend on them to represent your customer base or employees.
Evaluation Works can help you understand your customers and staff better than you’ve ever understood them before through a Survey Research project. Evaluation Works survey research projects are:
- Affordable: delivering invaluable feedback and information at a price that fits within the budget of any size organization;
- Reliable: utilizing analytically sound methodologies to reveal meaningful information you can depend on; and
- Actionable: conducting analysis that provides data-driven insights you can trust to make decisions to improve the customer experience or employee satisfaction.
“What is Survey Research?”
Survey research is the systematic collection of information through the use of some kind of instrument (whether paper surveys, touch screens, telephone calls, online interaction, etc.) The instrumentation and project are designed to collect information in a way that answers questions most relevant to a particular business. A systematic survey design and analysis process is the only way to get information that is customized to your particular information needs, and – most importantly – is “reliable” and ”valid.”
“But I already conduct my own surveys…”
Many organizations survey their customers or employees informally. However, these self-made or off-the-shelf surveys can often result in information that is, at best, misleading, and often times, just plan incorrect. As a manager or business owner, you are taking a considerable risk making important decisions based on data that may not be 100% reliable.
Common pitfalls often lie in one of these four key areas:
- Planning and Design: The planning stage for gathering information is key to deriving results you can actually use for decision-making. One common mistake is to overlook important questions you want to answer. Or even more common, you may know the questions you want to answer, but ask questions that have little or no relevance to those questions. Poor planning and/or design will inevitably lead to wasted effort and resources.
- Instrumentation: A poorly designed instrument leads to poor data, which leads to bad decision-making. Instruments must be both “valid” (meaning they actually measure what you intend for them to measure), and “reliable” (meaning they produce consistent results over time). Many “homemade” or off-the-shelf instruments have problems in one or both of these areas. (One simple test that can give an indication of the strength of your survey: Are you using a single scaled item to measure a concept or perception? Most of the survey research literature recommends use of multiple summed items to effectively measure respondents’ opinions.)
- The selection process: You may not always be able to collect data from every single customer or employee. Consequently, decisions must be made about how to collect information from a sample that is representative of the entire population you have an interest in. If the sample is not established properly or the collection does not follow the sampling design correctly, the end result is information that is not a true representation of your intended audience. In other words, you can end up making decisions and judgments based on information that does not accurately reflect the opinions of your customers or employees.
- Analysis: A typical informal survey results in an analysis that depends on simple averages or ranges of information. (For example, a common finding is something like this: “80% of our customers are satisfied with our products.”) This is okay for as far as it goes, but a more sophisticated analytical approach can reveal much more meaningful information. Wouldn’t you like to know something more about that 20% who suggested they are not satisfied with your products? Perhaps you would like to know which products they don’t like. Or if there is a relationship to the time of day they typically shop. Or if some other similarity exists with the individuals making up this 20%. A good survey research design allows for a close examination of the complexities in the data. This “multivariate” approach will tease out information that simple averages and frequencies won’t reveal.
“I really don’t need just a bunch of data.”
At Evaluation Works, we never use standard templates or off-the-shelf survey designs. A collaborative design approach on the front end ensures “actionable” results. We work closely with our clients to find out about their business needs and the issues that are most relevant to them. With this knowledge, we can create a customized survey project that offers much more than data; we deliver actionable information and data-driven insights that relate specifically to your business needs. Our focus isn’t on the data, it is on what the data means for you and your business.
“I probably can’t afford a survey research project.”
Conducting effective survey research is much like advertising or paying your employees: it is an investment into the health and continued prosperity of your business. But even so, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable it is to get better information about your customers or employees than you’ve ever had before.
All Evaluation Works survey projects include:
- Customized project design and planning
- Instrumentation design
- Data collection training
- Data analysis
- Quarterly and annual reporting
Standard Survey Research packages are available for a surprisingly small investment. Options are also available, such as data collection assistance, online survey options, touch screen survey kiosks, and multiple survey projects. Depending upon your needs and the depth of your project requirements, price, like survey design, can be customized to fit the particular needs of your business and budget.
Why guess about your customer and employee perceptions or, even worse, take action based on misleading information? An Evaluation Works survey research project will give you customer information that is
- Affordable,
- Reliable, and
- Actionable.
